Initial positions and criticisms

In the first decades after the exodus two diametrically opposed schools of analysis could be distinguished. In the words of Erskine Childers[1]: ‘Israel claims that the Arabs left because they were ordered to, and deliberately incited into panic, by their own leaders who wanted the field cleared for the 1948 war’, while ‘The Arabs charge that their people were evicted at bayonet-point and by panic deliberately incited by the Zionists.’

Israeli position

"...the Arabs in Palestine were asked to stay and live as citizens in the Jewish state. Instead, they chose to leave, either because they were unwilling to live with the Jews, or because they expected an Arab military victory which would annihilate the Zionists. They thought they could leave temporarily and return at their leisure. Later, an additional claim was put forth, namely that the Palestinians were ordered to leave, with radio broadcasts instructing them to quit their homes".[2]

Zionist historians generally attribute the Arab leaders’ alleged calls for a mass evacuation to the period before the proclamation of Israeli statehood.[2] They generally believe that, after that period, expulsion became standard policy and was carried out systematically.[2]

Palestinian and Arab position

According to Glazer[2] ‘[t]he Arab view of history has maintained that the Palestinians did not leave their homes voluntarily [but] were expelled by Zionist aggression. […] Sources sympathetic to the Arab viewpoint have seen in the events of 1948 the fulfilment of a long dreamed-of Zionist plan to rid Palestine of its Arab population, thus forcibly transforming Palestine into a Jewish state.’ Nur Masalha and Walid Khalidi points at the influence of thinking about ‘transfer’ of the Arab population to other Arab countries, among Zionists in the years prior to the exodus. In 1961 Khalidi also said that the Zionists had military superiority and that Plan Dalet, the Zionists’ military plan executed in April and May 1948, aimed at expelling the Palestinians.[3]

Reports from people and organizations unaffiliated with Israelis or Arabs

The United Nations dispatched observers to monitor how the partition plan was being implemented on the ground. In October 1948 they reported to the UN Secretary General that Israeli policy was that of "uprooting Arabs from their native villages in Palestine by force or threat."[4] The UN mediator on Palestine Folke Bernadotte attributed the exodus in a September 1948 report to panic caused by fighting, rumours and expulsion[5].

A May 3, 1948 Time Magazine article attributed the exodus from the city of Haifa to fear, Arab orders to leave and a Jewish assault[6]. The Economist attributed the exodus from Haifa to orders to leave from the Higher Arab Executive as well as expulsion by Jewish troops[7]. Christopher Hitchens has expressed doubt as to the validity of the report on orders to leave from the Higher Arab Executive[8].

Sir John Troutbeck, a British diplomat, reported from Gaza in 1949 that while the Palestinian Arab refugees "express no bitterness against the Jews […] they speak with the utmost bitterness of the Egyptians and other Arab states. 'We know who our enemies are,' they will say, and they are referring to their Arab brothers who, they declare, persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their homes."[9]

In the case of the village of Ein Karem, William O. Douglas recorded that "the villagers were told by the Arab leaders to leave. It apparently was a strategy of mass evacuation, whether or not necessary as a military or public safety measure." From eyewitness accounts, Douglas found that this, along with fear of Jewish attack, was a key reason for the exodus from Ein Karem.[10]

Criticism of traditional positions

Alternative explanations have also been offered. For instance Peretz[11] and Gabbay[11] emphasize the psychological component: panic or hysteria swept the Palestinians and caused the exodus. They attributed this to diverse causes like breakdown of Palestinian leadership, atrocity stories and Jewish military victories. Glazer also says that 'Israeli public opinion has maintained that as the Arabs planned to massacre the Jews, when the Jews began winning the war the Arabs fled, fearing the same treatment would be suffered on them.'.

In 1961 Erskine Childers challenged the notion that Arab leaders would have incited the refugees to leave their homes. According to Childers' studies, "There was [not] a single order, or appeal, or suggestion about evacuation from Palestine from any Arab radio station, inside or outside Palestine, in 1948. There is repeated monitored record of Arab appeals, even flat orders, to the civilians of Palestine to stay put." [12]

Globally, in his paper of 1981, Glazer thinks that "both Palestinians and Israeli spokesmen and adherents have sought to link the events of 1948 with their claims to the land today". He claims that one "fundamental [problem of the subject is to deal] with historians who are overtly biased" and try to identify the factors that influence this.[2]

Opening of archives

In the 1980s Israel and United-Kingdom opened up part of their archives for investigation by historians. This favored a more critical and factual analysis of the 1948 events. As a result more detailed and comprehensive description of the Palestinian exodus was published, notably Morris’ The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem.

Morris distinguishes four waves of refugees, the second, third and fourth of them coinciding with Israeli military offensives, when Arab Palestinians fled the fights or were expelled. The initial Israeli position has been replaced by a new version : the exodus was caused by neither Israeli nor Arab policies, but rather was a by-product of the 1948 Palestine War.[13]

Political and sociological influences on the historical debate

Several Israeli sociologists have studied the influence on the historical debate of the political and sociological situations in Israel. Referring to modern sociological schools and commenting historians methodology in the context of the 1948 war and the Palestinian exodus, Uri Ram considers that "contemporary historical revision and debates should be interpreted […] against the backdrop of specific crises in national identities and as an indication of crisis in national identity in the global era."[14]

According to him, "the three leading schools writing Israeli history reflect and articulate [the] political-cultural divisions [in the Israeli society]. Traditional mainstream history is national, mostly the labor movement version. On its fringe, a critical school of history emerged in the 1980s associated with post-Zionism (even if some of its protagonists identify as Zionists) [and] finally, in the 1990s efforts have been made to create a counterschool of neo-Zionist history […]".[14]

The "Concept of Transfer in Zionism"

Discussion of the 'idea of transfer' in political Zionism became popular beginning in the 1980s when Israel declassified documents pertaining to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War period and the so-called New Historians began publishing articles and books based on these documents. The Zionist 'concept of transfer' was cited by authors like Nur Masalha and Walid Khalidi to support their argument that the Zionist Yishuv followed an expulsion policy. Others such as Morris reject the idea that 'transfer' thinking lead to a political expulsion policy as such, but invoke the theory to explain that the idea of transfer was endorsed in practice by mainstream Zionist leaders, particularly David Ben-Gurion. Critics of the "transfer principle" theory cite public addresses by the contemporary Zionist leadership that preached co-existence with the Arabs. However proponents of the Zionist "transfer concept" say that Israeli archival documents show that real sentiments were largely discussed behind closed doors, and endorsed the idea of forced transfer of Arabs from the territory of the Jewish state.

The idea that 'transfer ideology' contributed to the exodus was first brought up by several Palestinian authors, and supported by Erskine Childers in his 1971 article, "The wordless wish". In 1961 Walid Khalidi referred to the transfer idea to support his idea that the Yishuv followed an expulsion policy in April and May 1948.[15] In 1980, historian Benny Morris became in the 1980s the most well-known advocate of the existence of the 'transfer idea'. According to Morris, while not discounting other reasons for the exodus, the 'transfer principle' theory suggests that this prevalent 'attitude of transfer' is what made it easy for the Jewish population to accept it and for local Haganah and IDF commanders to resort to various means of expelling the Arab population. In his article published in the Journal of Palestine Studies in 1998, Morris wrote:

"The nexus between thought and action was not so much a matter of 'predetermination' and preplanning as of a mind-set that accepted transfer as a legitimate solution. Once that 'transfer' got under way, of its own accord, in late 1947-early 1948 (Arabs fled mainly out of fear of bombs and bullets), the Zionist leadership, guided by Ben-Gurion, was predisposed to nudge the process along, occasionally with the help of expulsions. The initial refugee trickle turned into a flood tide during April-July 1948."[16]

He also notes that the attempt to achieve a demographic shift through aliyah (Jewish immigration to the land of Israel) had not been successful. As a result, some Zionist leaders adopted the transfer of a large Arab population as the only viable solution.[17] Morris also points out that "[if] Zionist support for 'Transfer' really is 'unambiguous'; the connection between that support and what actually happened during the war is far more tenuous than Arabs propagandists will allow" (Morris, p. 6).

To this he adds that "From April 1948, Ben-Gurion is projecting a message of transfer. There is no explicit order of his in writing, there is no orderly comprehensive policy, but there is an atmosphere of [population] transfer. The transfer idea is in the air. The entire leadership understands that this is the idea. The officer corps understands what is required of them. Under Ben-Gurion, a consensus of transfer is created."[18]

Origins of the ‘Transfer Idea’

Morris concludes that Zionisms aim was "to transform a land which was ‘Arab’ into a ‘Jewish’ state and a Jewish state could not have arisen without a major displacement of Arab population". According to Morris only after Arab resistance emerged did this become a rationale for transfer.[19] Other authors, including Palestinian writers and Israeli New Historians, have also described this attitude as a prevalent notion in Zionist thinking and as a major factor in the exodus.[20]

The Peel Commission's plan and the Yishuv's reaction

The idea of population transfer was briefly placed on the Mandate's political agenda in 1937 by the Peel Commission. The commission recommended that Britain should withdraw from Palestine and that the land be partitioned between Jews and Arabs. It called for a "transfer of land and an exchange of population", including the removal of 250,000 Palestinian Arabs from what would become the Jewish state[21], along the lines of the mutual population exchange between the Turkish and Greek populations after the Greco-Turkish War of 1922. According to the plan 'in the last resort' the transfer of Arabs from the Jewish part would be compulsory.[22] The transfer would be voluntary in as far as Arab leaders were required to agree with it, but after that it would be almost inevitable that it would have to be forced upon the population.[23]

Heavy Zionist lobbying had been necessary for the Peel commission to propose this 'in the last resort' compulsory transfer. Shertok, Weizmann and Ben-Gurion had travelled to London to talk it over, not only with members of the commission, but also with numerous politicians and officials whom the commission would be likely to consult.[24] This solution was embraced by Zionist leaders.[25] Ben-Gurion saw partition only as an intermediate stage in the establishment of Israel, before the Jewish state could expand to all of Palestine using force.[26]

Arab leaders, such as Emir Abdullah of Transjordan and Nuri as-Said of Iraq, supported the idea of a population transfer.[27] However, while Ben-Gurion was in favor of the Peel plan, he and other Zionist leaders considered it important that it be publicized as a British plan and not a Zionist plan. To this end, Morris quotes Moshe Sharett, director of the Jewish Agency's Political Department, who said (during a meeting of the Jewish Agency Executive on 7 May 1944 to consider the British Labour Party Executive's resolution supporting transfer:

Transfer could be the crowning achievements, the final stage in the development of [our] policy, but certainly not the point of departure. By [speaking publicly and prematurely] we could mobilizing vast forces against the matter and cause it to fail, in advance. […] What will happen once the Jewish state is established - it is very possible that the result will be the transfer of Arabs[28].

All of the other members of the JAE present, including Yitzhak Gruenbaum (later Israel's first interior minister), Eliahu Dobkin (director of the immigration department), Eliezer Kaplan (Israel's first finance minister), Dov Joseph (later Israel's justice minister) and Werner David Senator (a Hebrew University executive) spoke favorably of the transfer principle [29]. Morris summarises the attitude of the Jewish Agency Executive on 12 June 1938 as: "all preferred a ‘voluntary’ transfer; but most were also agreeable to a compulsory transfer".[30]

At the twentieth Zionist Congress, held in Zurich in August 1937, the plan was discussed and rejected on the ground that a larger part of Palestine should be assigned to them. Compulsory transfer was accepted as morally just by a majority although many doubted its feasibility.[31] Partition, however, was not acceptable for Ussishkin, head of the Jewish National Fund, who said, "The Arab people have immense areas of land at their disposal; our people have nothing except a grave's plot. We demand that our inheritance, Palestine, be returned to us, and if there is no room for Arabs, they have the opportunity of going to Iraq."[32]

The immediately succeeding Woodhead Commission, called to "examine the Peel Commission plan in detail and to recommend an actual partition plan" effectively removed the idea of transfer from the options under consideration by the British, and the 1939 White Paper proposed a complete end to immigration.

According to Nur Masalha 'the defeat of the partition plan in no way diminished the determination of the Ben-Gurion camp […] to continue working for the removal of the native population'[33] In November 1937 a Population Transfer Committee was appointed to investigate the practicalities of transfer. It discussed details of the costs, specific places for relocation of the Palestinians, and the order in which they should be transferred. In view of the need for land it concluded that the rural population should be transferred before the townspeople, and that a village by village manner would be best.[34] In June 1938 Ben-Gurion summed up the mood in the JAE: 'I support compulsory transfer. I do not see anything immoral in it'. Regarding the unwillingness of the British to implement it, land expropriation was seen as a major mechanism to precipitate a Palestinian exodus. Also the remaining Palestinians should not be left with substantial landholdings.[35]

The ‘Transfer Idea’ during 1947–1949

In early November 1947, some weeks before the UN partition resolution, the Jewish Agency Executive decided that it would be best to deny Israeli citizenship to as many Arabs as possible. As Ben-Gurion explained, in the event of hostilities, if the Arabs also held citizenship of the Arab state it would be possible to expel them as resident aliens, which was better than imprisoning them.[36]

In Flapan's[37] view, with the proclamation of the birth of Israel and the Arab governments' invasion into the new state, those Arabs who had remained in Israel after 15 May were viewed as "a security problem," a potential fifth column, even though they had not participated in the war and had stayed in Israel hoping to live in peace and equality, as promised in the Declaration of Independence. In the opinion of the author, that document had not altered Ben-Gurion's overall conception: once the Arab areas he considered vital to the constitution of the new state had been brought under Israeli control, there still remained the problem of their inhabitants.

According to Flapan[38] "Ben-Gurion appointed what became known as the transfer committee, composed of Weitz, Danin, and Zalman Lipshitz, a cartographer. At the basis of its recommendations, presented to Ben-Gurion in October 1948, was the idea that the number of Arabs should not amount to more than 15 percent of Israel's total population, which at that time meant about 100,000"[39].

In the view of Flapan[40] records are available from archives and diaries which while not revealing a specific plan or precise orders for expulsion, they provide overwhelming circumstantial evidence to show that a design was being implemented by the Haganah, and later by the IDF, to reduce the number of Arabs in the Jewish state to a minimum and to make use of most of their lands, properties, and habitats to absorb the masses of Jewish immigrants[41]. According to Michael Bar-Zohar, appeals to "the Arabs to stay" were political gestures for external audiences whereas "[i]n internal discussions," Ben-Gurion communicated that "it was better that the smallest possible number of Arabs remain within the area of the state."[42]

Flapan quotes Ben-Gurion several times in order to prove this basic stand:

After the flight of the Arabs began Ben-Gurion himself wrote in his diary, "We must afford civic and human equality to every Arab who remains, [but, he insisted,] it is not our task to worry about the return of the Arabs"[43].

On 11 May Ben-Gurion noted that he had given orders "for the destruction of Arab islands in Jewish population areas"[44].

During the early years of the state, Ben-Gurion stated that "the Arabs cannot accept the existence of Israel. Those who accept it are not normal. The best solution for the Arabs in Israel is to go and live in the Arab states-in the framework of a peace treaty or transfer."[45].

Nur Masalha also gives several quotes of Ben-Gurion supporting it:

On 7 February 1948, commenting on the de-Arabisation of parts of Western Jerusalem he told the Mapai Council: 'What happened in Jerusalem […] is likely to happen in many parts of the country […] in six, eight or ten months of the campaign there will certainly be great changes in the composition of the population in the country.'[46]

On 6 April he told the Zionist Actions Committee: 'We will not be able to win the war if we do not, during the war, populate upper and lower, eastern and western Galilee, the Negev and Jerusalem area […] I believe that war will also bring in its wake a great change in the distribution of the Arab population.'[47]

Flapan[48] considers that "hand in hand with measures to ensure the continued exodus of Arabs from Israel was a determination not to permit any of the refugees to return. He claims that all of the Zionist leaders (Ben-Gurion, Sharett, and Weizmann) agreed on this point".

Criticisms of the ‘Transfer Idea’

The 'transfer principle' theory was attacked by Efraim Karsh. Karsh argued that transferist thinking was a fringe philosophy within Zionism, and had no significant effect on expulsions. He gives two specific points of criticism:

Karsh cites evidence supporting the idea that Ben-Gurion and the Jewish Agency Executive (JAE) did not agree on transfer of Palestinian Arabs but rather had a much more tolerant vision of Arab-Jewish coexistence:

Ben-Gurion's at a JAE meeting in 1936: "We do not deny the right of the Arab inhabitants of the country, and we do not see this right as a hindrance to the realization of Zionism[49]."

Ben-Gurion to his party members:"In our state there will be non-Jews as well—and all of them will be equal citizens; equal in everything without any exception; that is: the state will be their state as well[50]."

in an October 1941 internal policy paper: "Jewish immigration and colonization in Palestine on a large scale can be carried out without displacing Arabs," and: "in a Jewish Palestine the position of the Arabs will not be worse than the position of the Jews themselves[51]."

explicit instructions of Israel Galili, the Haganah's commander-in-chief: "acknowledgement of the full rights, needs, and freedom of the Arabs in the Hebrew state without any discrimination, and a desire for coexistence on the basis of mutual freedom and dignity[52]."

According to Karsh there was never any Zionist attempt to inculcate the "transfer" idea in the hearts and minds of Jews. He could find no evidence of any press campaign, radio broadcasts, public rallies, or political gatherings, for none existed". Furthermore, in Karsh's opinion the idea of transfer was forced on the Zionist agenda by the British (in the recommendations of the 1937 Peel Royal Commission on Palestine) rather than being self-generated.[53].

The "Master Plan" explanation

Based on the aforementioned alleged prevalent idea of transfer, and on actual expulsions that took place in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Walid Khalidi, a Palestinian historian, introduced a thesis in 1961 according to which the Palestinian exodus was planned in advance by the Zionist leadership.[15]

Khalidi based his thesis on Plan D, a plan devised by the Haganah high command in March 1948, which stipulated, among other things that if Palestinians in villages controlled by the Jewish troops resist, they should be expelled (Khalidi, 1961). Plan D was aimed to establish Jewish sovereignty over the land allocated to the Jews by the United Nations (Resolution 181), and to prepare the ground toward the expected invasion of Palestine by Arab states after the imminent establishment of the state of Israel. In addition, it was introduced while Jewish-Palestinian fighting was already underway and while thousands of Palestinians had already fled. Nevertheless, Khalidi argued that the plan was a master-plan for the expulsion of the Palestinians from the territories controlled by the Jews. He argued that there was an omnipresent understanding during the war that as many Palestinian Arabs as possible had to be transferred out of the Jewish state, and that this understanding stood behind many of the expulsions that the commanders in the field carried out.

In the opinion of Glazer (1980, p. 113), there is evidence that Zionist leaders were already thinking about removal of the Palestinian population before the actual occurrence. On February 7, 1948, Ben-Gurion told the Central Committee of Mapai (the largest Zionist political party in Palestine) "it is most probable that in the 6, 8 or 10 coming months of the struggle many great changes will take place, very great in this country and not all of them to our disadvantage, and surely a great change in the composition of the population in the country"[54]. Glazer (1980, p. 113) states that the 1947 Partition Resolution awarded an area to the Jewish state whose population was 46 percent Arab and where much of this land was owned by Arabs. He considers that "it has been argued by the Zionists that they were prepared to make special accommodations for this large population; yet it is difficult to see how such accommodations could have coalesced with their plans for large-scale Jewish immigration; moreover, by August 1, 1948, the Israeli government had already stated that it was "economically unfeasible" to allow the return of the Arabs, at the very time when Jewish refugees were already entering the country and being settled on abandoned Arab property".

According to Ilan Pappé the Palestinian exodus can be described as ethnic cleansing. In his book ‘The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine’ Pappé analyses the causes of the exodus. He describes the aims the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine) had, the way it prepared in the years before the war to be able to achieve these aims and the way in which a pragmatic ethnic cleansing policy was devised and implemented in 1947-1949.

Planning by Ben-Gurion and the ‘Consultancy’

According to Flapan 'the Jewish army […] under the leadership of Ben-Gurion, planned and executed the expulsion in the wake of the UN Partition Resolution.'[55]

Pappé gives more details of this planning process. According to Pappé[56] Ben-Gurion was the architect of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. ‘His central role in deciding the fate of the Palestinians stemmed from the complete control he exercised over all issues of security and defence in the Jewish community in Palestine.’ In 1947 Ben-Gurion created what Pappé calls the ‘Consultancy’. This was a group of eleven people, a combination of military and security figures and specialists on Arab affairs. From October 1947 this group met weekly to discuss issues of security and strategy towards the Arab world and the Palestinians.[57].

At a meeting on 10 March the consultancy put the final touches on Plan Dalet[58], according to Pappé the blueprint for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. According to plan Dalet a Palestinian village was to expelled if it was located on a strategic spot or if it put up some sort of resistance when it was occupied by Yishuv forces. According to Pappé ‘it was clear that occupation would always provoke some resistance and that therefore no village would be immune, either because of its location or because it would not allow itself to be occupied.[59] After 15 May the Consultancy started meeting less frequently because according to Pappé ‘ever since plan Dalet had been put into motion it had been working well, and needed no further coordination and direction.’[60]

Role of the Yishuv's official decision-making bodies

Flapan says that "it must be understood that official Jewish decision-making bodies (the provisional government, the National Council, and the Jewish Agency Executive) neither discussed nor approved a design for expulsion, and any proposal of the sort would have been opposed and probably rejected. These bodies were heavily influenced by liberal, progressive labor, and socialist Zionist parties. The Zionist movement as a whole, both the left and the right, had consistently stressed that the Jewish people, who had always suffered persecution and discrimination as a national and religious minority, would provide a model of fair treatment of minorities in their own state".[61] The author later maintains that "once the flight began, however, Jewish leaders encouraged it. Sharett, for example, immediately declared that no mass return of Palestinians to Israel would be permitted"[62]. According to Flapan '[Aharon] Cohen [head of Mapam's Arab department] insisted in October 1948 that "the Arab exodus was not part of a preconceived plan." But, he acknowledged, "a part of the flight was due to official policy […] Once it started, the flight received encouragement from the most important Jewish sources, for both military and political reasons."'[63].

Criticisms of "Master Plan" explanation

Historians skeptical of the 'Master Plan' emphasize that no central directive has surfaced from the archives and argue that, had such an understanding been widespread, it would have left a mark in the vast documentation produced by the Zionist leadership at the time. Furthermore, Yosef Weitz, who was strongly in favor of expulsion, had explicitly asked Ben-Gurion for such a directive and was turned down. Finally, settlement policy guidelines drawn up between December 1947 and February 1948, designed to handle the absorption of the anticipated first million immigrants, planned for some 150 new settlements, of which about half were located in the Negev, while the remainder were sited along the lines of the UN partition map (29 November 1947) in the north and centre of the country.

The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East states that 'recent studies, based on official Israeli archives, have shown that there was no official policy or instructions to bring about the expulsion.'[64] In their book River without Bridges, Peter Dodd and Halim Barakat surveyed 37 Palestinian refugee families who fled during this time period and found that 68% of them did not so much as see any Israelis during the conflict.[65] According to Efraim Karsh:

'Israeli forces did on occsasion expel Palestinians. But this accounted for only a small fraction of the total exodus, occurred not within the framework of a premeditated plan but in the heat of battle, and was dictated predominantly by military ad hoc considerations (notably the need to deny strategic sites to the enemy if there were no available Jewish forces to hold them). […] Indeed, even the largest expulsions, during the battle for Lydda in July 1948, emanated from a string of unexpected developments on the ground and in no way foreseen in military plans for the capture of the town.'[66]

New historian Avi Shlaim considers that the Plan D is not a policy of expulsion but is a military plan dedicated to secure areas allocated to Jewish state.[67].

Benny Morris considers that there was no master plan nor ethnic cleansing: "The loose talk, the occasional discussions about the subject, never amounted to anything concrete".[68]. He adds :

There was no Zionist "plan" or blanket policy of evicting the Arab population, or of "ethnic cleansing". Plan Dalet (Plan D), of March 10th, 1948 (it is open and available for all to read in the IDF Archive and in various publications), was the master plan of the Haganah - the Jewish military force that became the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) - to counter the expected pan-Arab assault on the emergent Jewish state.[69]

He writes:

'My feeling is that the transfer thinking and near-consensus that emerged in the 1930s and early 1940s was not tantamount to pre-planning and did not issue in the production of a policy or master-plan of expulsion; the Yishuv and its military forces did not enter the 1948 War, which was initiated by the Arab side, with a policy or plan for expulsion.'[70]

and he further remarks:

'[T]he fact […] that during 1948 Ben-Gurion and most of the Yishuv's leaders wished to see as few Arabs remaining as possible, does not mean that the Yishuv adopted and implemented a policy of expulsion.'[71]

Morris also states that he could not find anything in the Israeli archives that would prove the existence of a Zionist plan to expel Palestinians in 1948. Elsewhere Morris has said that the explusion of the Palestinians did amount to ethnic cleansing, and that the action was justifiable considering the circumstances.[18]

Yoav Gelber notes that documentation exists[72] showing that Ben Gurion 'regarded the escape as a calculated withdrawal of non-combatant population upon the orders of Arab commanders and out of military considerations', which is contradictory to the hypothesis of a master plan he may have drawn up.[73]

Concerning the Plan Dalet, Gelber argues that Khalidi and Pappe's interpretation relies only on a single paragraph in a document of 75 pages, that has been taken out of its context.[74] Describing the plan in reference to the announced intervention of the Arab armies, he argues that 'it was a practical response to an emerging threat'[75] Gelber also argues that the occupation and destruction of Arab villages described in the paragraph quoted in Khalidi's paper had the military purpose of preventing Arabs from cutting roads facilitating incursions by Arab armies, while eliminating villages that might have served as bases for attacking Jewish settlements.[76] He also remarks that if Master Plan had been one dedicated to resolving the Arab question, it would have been written by Ben Gurion's advisors on Arab affairs and by military officers under the supervision of the chief-of-staff Yigal Yadin.[77]

Henry Laurens raises several objections to the views of those he calls the 'intentionalists'. Like Morris and Gelber he says that Plan Dalet obeyed a military logic, arguing that if it had not been followed, the strategic situation, particularly around Tel-Aviv would have been as critical as that which existed around Jerusalem during the war.[78]

Laurens cites some examples of events that indicate a contradiction in the 'intentionnalist' analysis. Like Gelber, he points out that Zionist authors at the beginning of the exodus considered it to be part and parcel of a 'diabolic British plan' devised to impede the creation of the Jewish state.[79] He also emphasizes that even those who had always advocated the Arab expulsion, like e.g. Yosef Weitz, had done nothing to prepare for it in advance, and thus found it necessary to improvise the 'other transfer', the one dealing with transfer of Arab properties to Jewish institutions.[80]

Globally Laurens also considers that the 'intentionnalism' thesis is untenable in the global context of the events and lacks historical methodology. He insists that, were the events the 'intentionnalists' put forward true, they are so only in terms of a priori reading of those events. To comply with such an analysis, the protagonists should have had a global consciousness of all the consequences of the project they promoted. Laurens considers that a "complot theory", on such a long time period, could not have been planned, even by a Ben Gurion. In an 'intentionalist' approach, he claims, events must be read without a priori and each action must be considered without assuming it will lead to where we know a posteriori it lead but it must be considered in its context and in taking into account where the actors thought it would lead.

Laurens considers that with an appropriate approach the documentation gathered by Morris shows that the exodus was caused by mutual fears of the other side's intentions, Arabs feaing to be expelled by Zionists and in reaction Zionists feaing Arabs would prevent them by force to build their own state, and the fact that Palestine was not able to absorb both populations (he describes the situation as a Zero-sum conflict).[81]

Morris’s ‘Four Waves’ analysis

According to Benny Morris, his work is often « mis-cited ». In Irith Times of February 2008, he summarized his analysis as follows :

Most of Palestine's 700,000 "refugees" fled their homes because of the flail of war (and in the expectation that they would shortly return to their homes on the backs of victorious Arab invaders). But it is also true that there were several dozen sites, including Lydda and Ramla, from which Arab communities were expelled by Jewish troops.[82]

.In ‘The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited’ Benny Morris divided the Palestinian exodus in four waves and an aftermath[83]: Morris analyses the direct causes, as opposed to his proposed indirect cause of the ‘transfer idea’, for each wave separately.

Causes of the first wave, December 1947 – March 1948

Morris gives no numbers regarding the first wave, but says ‘the spiral of violence precipitated flight by the middle and upper classes of the big towns, especially Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem, and their satellite rural communities. It also prompted the piecemeal, but almost complete, evacuation of the Arab rural population from what was to be the heartland of the Jewish State – the Coastal Plain between Tel Aviv and Hadera – and a small-scale partial evacuation of other rural areas hit by hostilities and containing large Jewish concentrations, namely the Jezreel and Jordan valleys.’[84]
More specific to the causes Morris states: 'The Arab evacuees from the towns and villages left largely because of Jewish […] attacks or fear of impending attack, and from a sense of vulnerability.'[84]
According to Morris expulsions were ‘almost insignificant’ and ‘many more left as a result of orders or advice from Arab military commanders and officials’ to safer areas within the country. The Palestinian leadership struggled against the exodus.[85]

Decisive causes of abandonment of Palestinian villages and towns according to Benny Morris

Causes of the second wave, April – June 1948

According to Morris the ‘Haganah and IZL offensives in Haifa, Jaffa and eastern and western Galilee precipitated a mass exodus’.[87] ‘Undoubtedly […] the most important single factor in the exodus of April-June was Jewish attack. This is demonstrated clearly by the fact that each exodus occurred during or in the immediate wake of military assault. No town was abandoned by the bulk of its population before the main Haganah/IZL assault.’[88] Also many villages were abandoned during attacks, but others were evacuated because the inhabitants feared they would be next.[88] A major factor in the exodus was the undermining of Palestinian morale due to the earlier fall and exodus from other towns and villages.[87]
Morris says that the ‘Palestinian leaders and commanders struggled against [the exodus]’ but in many cases encouraged evacuation of women children and old people out of harms way and in some cases ordered villages to evacuate.[87]

Regarding expulsions (Morris defines expulsions as 'when a Haganah/IDF/IZL/LHI unit entered or conquered a town or village and
then ordered its inhabitants to leave')[89] Morris says that the Yishuv leaders ‘were reluctant to openly order or endorse expulsions’ in towns but ‘Haganah commanders exercised greater independence and forcefulness in the countryside’: ‘In general Haganah operational orders for attacks on towns did not call for the expulsion or eviction of the civilian population. But from early April, operational orders for attacks on villages and clusters of villages more often than not called for the destruction of villages and, implicitly or explicitly, expulsion.’ Issuing expulsion orders was hardly necessary though, because ‘most villages were completely or almost completely empty by the time they were conquered’,[88] 'the inhabitants usually fled with the approach of the advancing Jewish column or when the first mortar bombs began to hit their homes'[90]. The Giv’ati Brigade engaged in expulsions near Rehovot.

Causes of the third and fourth waves, July – October 1948 and October – November 1948

In July ‘altogether, the Israeli offensives of the ‘Ten Days’ and the subsequent clearing operations probably send something over 100,000 Arabs into exile’.[91] About half of these were expelled from Lydda and Ramle on 12 through 14 July. Morris says that expulsion orders were given for both towns, the one for Ramle calling for ‘sorting out of the inhabitants, and send the army-age males to a prisoner of war camp.’[92]. ‘the commanders involved understood that what was happening was an expulsion rather than a spontaneous exodus’[93].

In October and November Operations Yoav in the Negev and Hiram in central Galilee were aimed at destroying enemy formations of respectively the Egyptian army and the Arab Liberation Army, and precipitated the flight of 200,000-230,000 Arabs.[94]. In the Negev the clearing was more complete because ‘the OC, Allon, was known to want ‘Arab-clean’ areas along his line of advance’ and ‘his subordinates usually acted in accordance’[95] and the inhabitants were almost uniformly Muslim. In the Galilee pocket, for various reasons, about 30-50 per cent of the inhabitants stayed[96].
More specifically regarding the causes of the exodus Morris says: ‘Both commanders were clearly bent on driving out the population in the area they were conquering’ and ‘Many, perhaps most, [Arabs] expected to be driven out, or worse. Hence, when the offensives were unleashed, there was a ‘coalescence’ of Jewish and Arab expectations, which led, especially in the south, to spontaneous flight by most of the inhabitants. And, on both fronts, IDF units ‘nudged’ Arabs into flight and expelled communities’.[95]

Main causes of the Palestinian exodus according to Israeli historian Benny Morris

Two-stage analysis

The 'Two-stage explanation' brought forth by Yoav Gelber [2] synthetises the events of 1948 in distinguishing two phases in the exodus. Before the first truce (11 June - 8 July 1948), it explains the exodus as a result of the crumbling Arab social structure that was not ready to withstand a civil war, and justified Jewish military conduct. After the truce the IDF launched counter offensives against the invading forces. Gelber explains the exodus in this stage as a result of expulsions and massacres performed by the Israeli army during Operation Dani and the campaign in the Galilee and Negev.

First Stage: The crumbling of Arab Palestinian social structure

Gelber describes the exodus before July 1948 as being initially mainly due to the inability of the Palestinian social structure to withstand a state of war :

Mass flight accompanied the fighting from the beginning of the civil war. In the absence of proper military objectives, the antagonists carried out their attacks on non-combatant targets, subjecting civilians of both sides to deprivation, intimidation and harassment. Consequently, the weaker and backward Palestinian society collapsed under a not-overly-heavy strain. Unlike the Jews, who had nowhere to go and fought with their back to the wall, the Palestinians had nearby shelters. From the beginning of hostilities, an increasing flow of refugees drifted into the heart of Arab-populated areas and into adjacent countries […] The Palestinians' precarious social structure tumbled because of economic hardships and administrative disorganization. Contrary to the Jews who built their "State in the Making" during the mandate period, the Palestinians had not created in time substitutes for the government services that vanished with the British withdrawal. The collapse of services, the lack of authority and a general feeling of fear and insecurity generated anarchy in the Arab sector.

Early in April, the Haganah launched several large-scale operations across the country.

In the last six weeks of the British mandate, the Jews occupied most of the area that the UN partition plan allotted to their State. They took over five towns and 200 villages; between 250,000 to 300,000 Palestinians and other Arabs ran away (so far, they were not driven out) to Palestine's Arab sectors and to neighboring countries.

Unlike the pre-invasion period, certain Israeli Defense Force (IDF) actions on the eve of and after the invasion aimed at driving out the Arab population from villages close to Jewish settlements or adjacent to main roads. These measures appeared necessary in face of the looming military threat by the invading Arab armies. The Israelis held the Palestinians responsible for the distress that the invasion caused and believed they deserved severe punishment. The local deportations of May-June 1948 appeared both militarily vital and morally justified. Confident that their conduct was indispensable, the troops did not attempt to conceal harsh treatment of civilians in their after-action reports.[101]

According to Efraim Karsh in April 1948 "some 100,000 Palestinians, mostly from the main urban centres of Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem and from villages in the coastal plane, had gone. Within a month those numbers had nearly doubled; and by early June, […] some 390,000 Palestinians had left."[66] 30,000 Arabs, mostly intellectuals and members of the social elite, had fled Palestine in the months following the approval of the partition plan, undermining the social infrastructure of Palestine.[102] According to Gelber the disintegration of the civil structure built by the British amplified the problem:

Thousands of Palestinian government employees (doctors, nurses, civil servants, lawyers, clerks, etc.) became redundant and departed as the mandatory administration disintegrated. This set a model and created an atmosphere of desertion that rapidly expanded to wider circles. Between half to two-thirds of the inhabitants in cities such as Haifa or Jaffa had abandoned their homes before the Jews stormed these towns in late April 1948.

A May 10, 1948 Time Magazine article states:

"Said one British official in Jerusalem last week: 'The whole effendi class has gone. It is remarkable how many of the younger ones are suddenly deciding that this might be a good time to resume their studies at Oxford […]'"[103]

Other historians such as Efraim Karsh, Avraham Sela, Moshe Efrat, Ian J. Bickerton, Carla L. Klausner, and Howard Sachar share this analysis. In his interpretation of the second wave (Gelber's first stage), as he names Israeli attacks (Operations Nachshon, Yiftah, Ben 'Ami, …) Sachar considers Israeli attacks only as a secondary reason for flight, with the meltdown of the Palestinian society as the primary:

The most obvious reason for the mass exodus was the collapse of Palestine Arab political institutions that ensued upon the flight of the Arab leadership. [… O]nce this elite was gone, the Arab peasant was terrified by the likelihood of remaining in an institutional and cultural void. Jewish victories obviously intensified the fear and accelerated departure. In many cases, too […] Jews captured Arab villages, expelled the inhabitants, and blew up houses to prevent them from being used as strongholds against them. In other instances, Qawukji's men used Arab villages for their bases, provoking immediate Jewish retaliation.[104]

"[R]ecent studies, based on official Israeli archives, have shown that there was no official policy or instructions intended to bring about the expulsion and that most of the Palestinians who became refugees had left their homes on their own initiative, before they came face to face with Israeli forces, especially in the period between late 1947 and June 1948. Later on, Israel's civil and military leadership became more decisive about preventing refugees from returning to their homes and more willing to resort to coercion in expelling the Palestine Arabs from their homes. This was not uniformly implemented in every sector and had much to do with decisions of local military commanders and circumstances, which might explain why some 156,000 Palestinians remained in Israel at the end of the war.[64]

"Palestinian leadership was absent just at the time when it was most needed. Further collapse occurred during 1947-1949, as many of the local mayors, judges, communal and religious officials fled. Palestinian society […] was semifeudal in character, and once the landlords and other leaders had made good their own escape—as they did from Haifa, Jaffa, Safed, and elsewhere—the Arab townspeople, villagers, and peasants were left helpless."[105]

Second Stage: Israeli army victories and expulsions

After the start of the Israeli counteroffensive, Gelber considers the exodus to have been a result of Israeli army's victory and the expulsion of Palestinians. He writes:

"The Arab expeditions failed to protect them, and they remained a constant reminder of the fiasco. These later refugees were sometimes literally deported across the lines. In certain cases, IDF units terrorized them to hasten their flight, and isolated massacres particularly during the liberation of Galilee and the Negev in October 1948 expedited the flight."

Morris also reports expulsions during these events. For example, concerning whether in Operation Hiram there was a comprehensive and explicit expulsion order he replied:

Yes. One of the revelations in the book is that on October 31, 1948, the commander of the Northern Front, Moshe Carmel, issued an order in writing to his units to expedite the removal of the Arab population. Carmel took this action immediately after a visit by Ben-Gurion to the Northern Command in Nazareth. There is no doubt in my mind that this order originated with Ben-Gurion. Just as the expulsion order for the city of Lod, which was signed by Yitzhak Rabin, was issued immediately after Ben-Gurion visited the headquarters of Operation Dani [July 1948]. [3]

Gelber also underlines that Palestinian had certainly in mind the opportunity they would have to return their home after the conflict and that this hope must have eased their flight: 'When they ran away, the refugees were confident of their eventual repatriation at the end of hostilities. This term could mean a cease-fire, a truce, an armistice and, certainly, a peace agreement. The return of escapees had been customary in the Middle East's wars throughout the ages'.

Historian Christopher Sykes saw the causes of the Arab flight similar to Gelber:

It can be said with a high degree of certainty that most of the time in the first half of 1948 the mass-exodus was the natural, thoughtless, pitiful movement of ignorant people who had been badly led and who in the day of trial found themselves forsaken by their leaders. Terror was the impulse, by hearsay most often, and sometimes through experience as in the Arab port of Jaffa which surrendered on the 12th of May and where the Irgunists, to quote Mr. John Marlowe, 'embellished their Deir Yassin battle honours by an orgy of looting'. But if the exodus was by and large an accident of war in the first stage, in the later stages it was consciously and mercilessly helped on by Jewish threats and aggression towards Arab populations. (Cross Roads to Israel, 1973)

Karsh views the second stage as being "dictated predominantly by ad hoc military considerations (notably the need to deny strategic sites to the enemy if there were no available Jewish forces to hold them)."[66]

Palestinian Arab fears

In a 1958 publication, Don Peretz rejected both the Israeli and Palestinian explanations of the exodus. Peretz suggested that the exodus could be attributed to "deeper social causes of upheaval within the Palestine Arab community" such as the breakdown of all governing structures. According to him, "The community became easy prey to rumor and exaggerated atrocity stories. The psychological preparation for mass flight was complete. The hysteria fed upon the growing number of Jewish military victories. With most Arab leaders then outside the country, British officials no longer in evidence, and the disappearance of the Arab press, there remained no authoritative voice to inspire confidence among the Arab masses and to check their flight. As might be expected in such circumstances, the flight gathered momentum until it carried away nearly the whole of the Palestine Arab community"[11]

In 1959, Rony Gabbay wrote:

"The departure of the Arabs of Palestine from towns and villages during April-15 May 1948 cannot be attributed to any specific reason. Rather, the exodus was the result of many diverse elements - psychological, military and political - which combined together to produce this phenomena. It was a result of the contradictory actions and reactions which destroyed all hopes in the hearts of the Arab population and urged them to flee aimlessly hither and thither. The way in which groups and even members of the same families fled, individually and in different directions can give us an idea of the degree of panic and horror which was felt amongst them"[11]

In their volume on the 1947-1948 period in Jerusalem and surrounding areas, O Jerusalem!, Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre give a variety of explanations for the cause of the 1948 Palestinian exodus, but conclude, "Above all, fear and uncertainty fueled the Arabs' flight."[106] Middle East historian Karen Armstrong described a similar mechanism.[107] Schechtman, argues in his book The Arab Refugee Problem that a large part of the exodus was caused by Arab fear of attack, reprisal, and the other stresses of war. Schechtman himself attributes this to purely to the perspective of the refugees. He expounds this theory as follows:

"Arab warfare against the Jews in Palestine […] had always been marked by indiscriminate killing, mutilating, raping, looting and pillaging. This 1947-48 attack on the Jewish community was more savage than ever. Until the Arab armies invaded Israel on the very day of its birth, May 15, 1948, no quarter whatsoever had ever been given to a Jew who fell into Arab hands. Wounded and dead alike were mutilated. Every member of the Jewish community was regarded as an enemy to be mercilessly destroyed. […][T]he Arab population of Palestine anticipated nothing less than massacres in retaliation if the Jews were victorious. Measuring the Jewish reaction by their own standards, they simply could not imagine that the Jews would not reply in kind what they had suffered at Arab hands. And this fear played a significant role in the Arab flight.[108]

Schechtman also cites evidence that the Arab leaders spread rumors of atrocities that did not actually occur, which only added to the Palestinian Arabs' fears.[109]

According to Avraham Sela, the Palestinian exodus began with news of the Zionists' military victories in April-May 1948:

"[T]he offensive had a strong psychological effect on Palestinian-Arab villagers, whose tendency to leave under Jewish military pressure became a mass exodus. […] [T]he exodus was a spontaneous movement, caused by an awareness of the Arab weakness and fear of annihilation typical in civil wars. Moreover, an early visible departure of nearly all the leadership was clearly understood as a signal, if not as an outright command."[110]

In his conclusions concerning the second wave of the flight, Morris also cites the atrocity factor as a one of the causes. What happened or allegedly happened and in a more general way the massacre of Deir Yassin and its exaggerated description broadcast on Arab radio stations undermined Arabs morale.[111] Yoav Gelber also considers that the "Haganah, IZL and LHI's retaliations terrified the Arabs and hastened the flight".[112]

Childers, while dismissing the fact that Arab leaders instigated the flight on radio broadcasts, points out that Zionist radio broadcasts were designed to demoralize the Arab audience.[113] The author cites the fact that rumours were spread by the Israeli forces that they possessed the atomic bomb.[114] Similarly, Khalidi points to what he describes as the Zionist "psychological offensive" which was highlighted by, though not limited to, radio messages warning the Arabs of diseases, the ineffectiveness of armed resistance and the incompetence of their leaders.[115]

Psychological warfare

The Yishuv used psychological warfare that initiated, accelerated and increased the Palestinian exodus. In many instances the declared aim was to demoralise the Palestinians or to accelerate their surrender. In many instances however the result was the flight of Palestinians. According to various historians the Yishuv engaged in various types of psychological warfare:

Intimidation

According to Pappé intimidation by various means was used. For instance in Haifa since December 1947 Jewish troops engaged in sniping, shelling, rolling barrels full of explosives and huge steel balls down into Palestionian neighborhoods and pouring oil mixed with fuel down the roads, which they then ignited.[116] Yoav Gelber considers that the "Haganah, IZL and LHI's retaliations terrified the Arabs and hastened the flight".[112]

According to Pappé the Haganah engaged in what it called 'violent reconnaiscance': 'Special units of the Haganah would enter villages looking for 'infiltrators' (read 'Arab volunteers') and distribute leaflets warning the people against cooperating with the Arab Liberation Army. Any resistance to such an incursion usually ended with the Jewish troops firing at random and killing several villagers'[117] Khalidi mentions ‘repeated and merciless raids against sleeping villages carried out in conformity with plan C’, i.e. in the period before April 1948.[118]

In some cases threatening leaflets were distributed, containing wordings like: 'if the war will be taken to your place, it will cause massive expulsion of the villagers, with their wives and children' [119]

Various authors give examples of instigation of whisper campaigns. Childers cites the fact that rumours were spread by the Israeli forces that they possessed the atomic bomb.[114] Morris cites Yigal Allon, the Palmach commander, describing such a campaign:"I gathered the Jewish mukhtars, who had ties with the different Arab villages, and I asked them to whisper in the ears of several Arabs that giant Jewish reinforcements had reached the Galilee and were about to clean out the villages of the Hula, [and] to advise them, as friends, to flee while they could. And the rumour spread throughout the Hula that the time had come to flee. The flight encompassed tens of thousands. The stratagem fully achieved its objective[120]

Broadcasts on radio and by loudspeaker vans

Childers points out that Zionist radio broadcasts were designed to demoralize the Arab audience.On March 17, four days before the Jewish offensive, the Irgun made an Arabic language broadcast, warning urban Arabs that "typhus, cholera and similar diseases would break out heavily among them in April and May."[113][121] Similarly, Khalidi points to what he describes as the Zionist "psychological offensive" which was highlighted by, though not limited to, radio messages warning the Arabs of diseases, the ineffectiveness of armed resistance and the incompetence of their leaders.[115] According to Morris[122] during the exodus of Haifa ‘The Haganah broadcasts called on the populace to ‘evacuate the women, the children and the old immediately, and send them to a safe haven.’’.

During the exodus from Haifa according to Morris[122] the Haganah made effective use of ‘Arab language broadcasts and loudspeaker vans’ and according to Pappé [116] ‘Jewish loudspeakers [urged] the Palestinian women and children to leave before it was too late’.

According to Morris during April the Haganah 'had prepared and recorded six speeches, which were broadcast time and again by the Haganah's radio station and loudspeaker vans.' They didn't call for Arab flight, but they 'were designed to cause demoralisation - and the HGS\Operations proposed to 'exploit' this demoralisation (it didn't say how)'.[123]

Shelling of civilians and fighters

Khalidi illustrates the psychological warfare of the Haganah by the use of the Davidka mortar. He writes that it was a "favorite weapon of the Zionists", which they used against civilians: "the Davidka tossed a shell containing 60 lbs. of TNT usually into crowded built-up civilian quarters where the noise and blast maddened women and children into a frenzy of fear and panic"[118]

Various authors mention specific cases in which the Yishuv engaged in shelling of civilians:

Morris says that during the battle of Tiberias the Haganah engaged in bombarding the Arab population with mortars[124]

Morris says that during the exodus of Haifa a primary aim of mortar barrages was demoralisation: "The Haganah mortar attacks of 21-22 April were primarily designed to break Arab morale in order to bring about a swift collapse of resistance and speedy surrender. […] But clearly the offensive, and especially the mortarring, precipitated the exodus. The three inch mortars ‘opened up on the market square [where there was] a great crowd […] a great panic took hold. The multitude burst into the port, pushed aside the policemen, charged the boats and began to flee the town’, as the official Haganah history later put it."[125] According to Pappé [126] this mortar barrage was deliberately aimed at civilians to precipitate their flight from Haifa.

Nathan Krystall writes: ‘As a precursor to its attack on Qatamon, the Zionist forces subjected the neighborhood to weeks of heavy artillery shelling. On 22 April, the Arab National Committee of Jerusalem ordered its local branches to relocate all women, children, and elderly people from the neighborhood.’[127]

In his report concerning the fall of Jaffa the local Arab military commander, Michel Issa, writes: 'Continuous shelling with mortars of the city by Jews for four days, beginning 25 April, […] caused inhabitants of city, unaccustomed to such bombardment, to panic and flee.'[128] According to Morris the shelling was done by the Irgun. Their objective was 'to prevent constant military traffic in the city, to break the spirit of the enemy troops [and] to cause chaos among the civilian population in order to create a mass flight'.[129] High Commissioner Cunningham wrote a few days later 'It should be made clear that IZL attack with mortars was indiscriminate and designed to create panic among the civilian inhabitants'.[129]

Between 15 May and 11 July, the Jordanian shelling of West-Jerusalem killed 300 Israelis and wounded around 1000.[130]

Massacres

Template:Too few opinions
Massacres were aimed at frightening Palestinians away. In his memoirs the Palestinian physician Elias Srouji wrote:

Tactics became even more brutal when the Zionists were ready to complete their occupation of the Galilee in October. By that time the Arab villagers, having seen what had happened elsewhere, had become adamant about staying put in their homes and on their lands. To frighten them away, the occupying forces started a strategy of planned massacres, which were carried out in Eilabun, Faradiyya, Safsaf, Sa'sa', and other villages. In places where this was not to their advantage for one reason or another, the army would resort to forceful expulsion. I was to wittnes some of these tactics in Rameh a month or so later.[131]

Massacres were also exploited by Jewish propaganda. For instance Nathan Krystall writes:

News of the attack on and massacre in Deir Yassin spread quickly throughout Palestine. De Reynier argued that the 'general terror' was 'astutely fostered by the Jews, with Haganah radio incessantly repeating 'Remember Deir Yassin' and loudspeaker vans broadcasting messages in Arabic such as: 'Unless you leave your homes, the fate of Deir Yassin will be your fate.[127]

According to Flapan, "from another perspective, [the Deir Yassin massacre] made perfect sense. More panic was sown among the Arab population by this operation than by anything that had happened up to then. […] While Ben-Gurion condemned the massacre in no uncertain terms, he did nothing to curb the independent actions of the Jewish underground armies."[55]

The "Arab leaders' endorsement of flight" explanation

The first explanation published of what caused the 1948 Palestinian exodus was that the Arab political and military leaders within Palestine and in surrounding countries actually told Arab civilians in Palestine to leave their homes so as to avoid any casualties of war with the expectation that they would return to their homes once the Arab armies destroyed the Yishuv. In subsequent studies of radio broadcasts and Arab newspapers no such orders have been found. To the contrary orders were issued for the Palestinians to stay in their homes.[132]

Claims that support that the flight was instigated by Arab leaders

Israeli official sources, foreign press, and officials present at the time, and historians have claimed that the refugee flight was instigated by Arab leaders. For example, Yosef Weitz wrote in October 1948: "The migration of the Arabs from the Land of Israel was not caused by persecution, violence, expulsion [but was] deliberately organised by the Arab leaders in order to arouse Arab feelings of revenge, to artificially create an Arab refugee problem." Israeli historian Efraim Karsh wrote, "The logic behind this policy was apparently that 'the absence of women and children from Palestine would free the men for fighting', as the Secretary-General of the Arab League, Abd al-Rahman Azzam put it." In his book, The Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Palestine War 1948, Karsh cited the substantial, active role the Arab Higher Committee played in the exoduses from Haifa, Tiberias, and Jaffa as an important part of understanding what he called the "birth of the Palestinian refugee problem."[66]

"During the early 1940s, against the backdrop of the Holocaust and official British deliberations about a postwar solution to the Palestine problem based on partition, all understood (as had the Peel Commission) that any partition not accompanied by a transfer of Arabs out of the territory of the Jewish-state-to-be would be unstable or pointless, as the large Arab minority, if left in place, would be disloyal and rebellious, and would inevitably enjoy the support of the surrounding Arab world. ... British officials and Arab heads of state (who, of course, feared to state these views in public) shared this view. That is why the British Labour Party Executive in 1944 supported partition accompanied by transfer, and that is why Jordan's Emir Abdullah and Iraq's prime minister Nuri Said, among other Arab statesmen, supported such a population transfer if Palestine was to be partitioned.

Morris also documented that the Arab Higher Committee ordered the evacuation of "several dozen villages, as well as the removal of dependents from dozens more in April-July 1948. "The invading Arab armies also occasionally ordered whole villages to depart, so as not to be in their way." [135] The Near East Broadcasting Station in Cyprus declared that "It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees’ flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem."[136] Evidence such as this led Shmuel Katz to conclude in his book Battleground "that the Arab refugees were not driven from Palestine by anyone. The vast majority left, whether of their own free will or at the orders or exhortations of their leaders."[137] He explains, "The Arabs are the only declared refugee group who became refugees ... by the initiative of their own leaders."[138]

Claims by Arab sources that support that the flight was instigated by Arab leaders

Former Prime Minister of SyriaKhalid al-Azm recalled in his memoirs, "We brought disaster upon one million Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave their land, their homes, their work and their industry."[139]Abu Iyad made similar observations in his own memoirs.[140]

After the war, a few Arab leaders tried to present the Palestinian exodus as a victory by claiming to have planned it. Iraqi Prime MinisterNouri Said was later quoted as saying: "We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down."[141]

Contemporary Jordanian politician Anwar Nusseibeh believed that the fault for the exodus and military loss was with the Arab commanders: "the commanders of the local army thought in terms of the revolt against the British in the 1930s. The rebels had often retreated to the mountains .... But the Jews were fighting for complete domination, so the fighters had erred in withdrawing from the villages instead of defending them […]."[142]

The Arab National Committee of Haifa, the Arab leadership in Haifa in 1948, wrote and delivered a report on the flight of roughly 60,000 Arabs from Haifa. The report said, "[T]he removal of the Arab inhabitants from the town was voluntary and carried out at our request."[143]

"Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes and property and to stay temporarily in neighboring, brotherly states, lest the guns of the invading Arab armies mow them down," wrote Habab Issa of Al-Hoda, the leading newspaper for Lebanese Maronites in the United States.[144] A Muslim weekly newspaper in Beirut similarly reported, "Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders […]? The Arab States [sp], and Lebanon amongst them, did it!"[145]

Mahmoud Abbas, at the time Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, would later recall: "The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live."[146]

Jamal Husseini, the brother of Palestinian military and religious leader Hajj Amin
Husseini, wrote to the Syrian UN representative, "The regular [Arab] aremies did not enable the [Arab] inhabitants of [Palestine] to defend themselves, but merely facilitated their escape from Palestine."[147] Palestinian military leader Emile Ghoury expressed similar views. Furthermore, Palestinian Arab protesters in the West Bank took to the streets on the occasion of "the first anniversary of Israel's establishment" to place blame on "the Arab states for the creation of the refugee problem."[148]

Criticisms of the "endorsement of flight" explanation

Morris, with others of the New Historians school, concur that that Arab instigation was not the major cause of the refugees' flight[149]. They do acknowledge that Arab instigation during December 1947-June 1948 may have caused around 5 percent of total exodus[150][151]. As regards the overall exodus, they clearly state that the major cause of Palestinian flight was not Arab instigation but rather military actions by the Israeli Defence Force and fear of them. In their view, Arab instigation can only explain a small part of the exodus and not a large part of it[152][153][154][155][156][157]. Moreover, Morris and Flapan have been among the authors whose research has disputed the official Israeli version claiming that the refugee flight was in large part instigated by Arab leaders[158][159][160].

This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boastings of an unrealistic Arabic press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to reenter and retake possession of their country. But it was also ... largely due to a policy of deliberate terrorism and eviction followed by the Jewish commanders in the areas they occupied, and reaching its peak of brutality in the massacre of Deir Yassin.There were two good reasons why the Jews should follow such a policy. First, the problem of harbouring within the Jewish State a large and disaffected Arab population had always troubled them. They wanted an exclusively Jewish state, and the presence of such a population that could never be assimilated, that would always resent its inferior position under Jewish rule and stretch a hand across so many frontiers to its Arab cousins in the surrounding countries, would not only detract from the Jewishness of Israel, but also constitute a danger to its existence. Secondly, the Israelis wanted to open the doors of Palestine to unrestricted Jewish immigration. Obviously, the fewer Arabs there were in the country the more room there would be for Jewish immigrants. If the Arabs could be driven out of the land in the course of the fighting, the Jews would have their homes, their lands, whole villages and towns, without even having to purchase them.[161]

Erskine Childers checked transcripts of all Arab radio services monitored by the BBC in 1948, and discovered that, '(T)here was not a single order, or appeal, or suggestion about evacuation from Palestine from any Arab radio station, inside or outside Palestine, in 1948', and that to the contrary broadcasts gave flat orders to civilians to stay put[162]. His point is taken by Glazer (1980, p. 101), who writes that not only did Arab radio stations appeal to the inhabitants not to leave, but also Zionist radio stations urged the population to flee, by exaggerating the course of battle, and, in some cases, fabricating complete lies[163].

More evidence is presented by Walid Khalidi[164]. In his article the author argues that steps were taken by Arab governments to prevent Palestinians from leaving, ensuring that they remain to fight, including the denial by Lebanon and Syria of residency permits to Palestinian males of military age on April 30 and May 6 respectively. He also notes that a number of Arab radio broadcasts urged the inhabitants of Palestine to remain and discussed plans for an Arab administration there.[165]

According to Glazer (1980, p. 105), among those who blame Arab news reports for the resulting panic flight are Polk et al.[166] and Gabbay[167]. They maintain that the Arabs overstated the case of Zionist atrocities, made the situation seem worse than it was and thus caused the population to flee. According to Glazer, Gabbay, in particular, has assembled an impressive listing of sources which describe Zionist cruelty and savagery[168]. In this sense, Glazer (1980, p. 105) cites the work done by Childers who maintains that it was the Zionists who disseminated these stories, at the time when the Arab sources were urging calm. He cites carefully composed 'horror recordings' in which a voice calls out in Arabic for the population to escape because 'the Jews are using poison gas and atomic weapons'[169]. In the opinion of Glazer (1980, p. 108) one of the greatest weaknesses of the traditional Zionist argument, which attempts to explain the exodus as a careful, calculated and organized plan by various Arab authorities, is that it cannot account for the totally disorganized way in which the exodus occurred[170]. As regards the evidence provided supporting the idea that Arab leaders incited the flight of Palestinian population, Glazer (1980, p. 106) states, "I am inclined to prefer Childers[' research] because the sources he cites would have reached the masses.... Gabbay's evidence, newspapers and UN documents, were designed for outside consumption, by diplomats and politicians abroad and by the educated and influential Arab decision makers. This is not the kind of material which would necessarily have been in the hands of the common Palestinian."

Flapan[171] further maintains that to support their claim that Arab leaders had incited the flight, Israeli and Zionist sources were constantly "quoting" statements by the Arab Higher Committee to the effect that "in a very short time the armies of our Arab sister countries will overrun Palestine, attacking from the land, the sea, and the air, and they will settle accounts with the Jews."[172] Though he accepts that some such statements were issued, he believes that they were intended to stop the panic that was causing the masses to abandon their villages and that they were issued as a warning to the increasing number of Arabs who were willing to accept partition as irreversible and cease struggling against it. From his point of view, in practice the AHC statements boomeranged and further increased Arab panic and flight.[173] According to Aharon Cohen, head of Mapam's Arab department, the Arab leadership was very critical of the "fifth columnists and rumormongers" behind the flight[174]. When, after April 1948, the flight acquired massive dimensions, Azzam Pasha, secretary of the Arab League, and King 'Abdailah both issued public calls to the Arabs not to leave their homes[175]. Fawzi al-Qawuqji, commander of the Arab Liberation Army, was given instructions to stop the flight by force and to requisition transport for this purpose[176]. Muhammad Adib al-'Umri, deputy director of the Ramallah broadcasting station, appealed to the Arabs to stop the flight from Janin, Tulkarm, and other towns in the Triangle that were bombed by the Israelis[177]. On 10 May Radio Jerusalem broadcast orders on its Arab program from Arab commanders and the AHC to stop the mass flight from Jerusalem and its vicinity. Flapan considers that Palestinian sources offer further evidence that even earlier, in March and April, the Arab Higher Committee broadcasting from Damascus demanded that the population stay put and announced that Palestinians of military age were to return from the Arab countries. All Arab officials in Palestine were also asked to remain at their posts[178] The author claims that such pleas had so little impact because they were outweighed by the cumulative effect of Zionist pressure tactics that ranged from economic and psychological warfare to the systematic ousting of the Arab population by the army.

According to Flapan[179] the idea that Arab leaders ordered the Arab masses to leave their homes in order to open the way for the invading armies, after which they would return to share in the victory, makes no sense at all. In his opinion, the Arab armies, coming long distances and operating in or from the Arab areas of Palestine, needed the help of the local population for food, fuel, water, transport, manpower, and information. The author cites a report of the Jewish Agency's Arab section from January 3, 1948, at the beginning of the flight, which in his view suggests that the Arabs were already concerned with the possibility of flight, "The Arab exodus from Palestine continues, mainly to the countries of the West. Of late, the Arab Higher Executive has succeeded in imposing close scrutiny on those leaving for Arab countries in the Middle East[180]. Flapan maintains that prior to the declaration of statehood, the Arab League's political committee, meeting in Sofar, Lebanon, recommended that the Arab states "open the doors to […] women and children and old people if events in Palestine make it necessary[181], but that the AHC vigorously opposed the departure of Palestinians and even the granting of visas to women and children[182].

Arab Evacuation Orders

Morris estimates that Arab orders accounts for at most 5% of the total exodus:

"Arab officers ordered the complete evacuation of specific villages in certain areas, lest their inhabitants ‘treacherously’ acquiesce in Israeli rule or hamper Arab military deployments. […] There can be no exaggerating the importance of these early Arab-initiated evacuations in the demoralization, and eventual exodus, of the remaining rural and urban populations"[183]

Furthermore, in his comprehensive book on the Arab-Israeli conflict, Righteous Victims, Morris wrote:

"In some areas Arab commanders ordered the villagers to evacuate to clear the ground for military purposes or to prevent surrender. More than half a dozen villages ... were abandoned during these months as a result of such orders. Elsewhere, in East Jerusalem and in many villages around the country, the [Arab] commanders ordered women, old people, and children to be sent away to be out of harm's way. ... [T]he AHC and the Arab League had periodically endorsed such a move when contemplating the future war in Palestine."[184]

In a 2003 interview with Haaretz, Morris summed up the conclusions of his revised edition of The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem: "In the months of April-May 1948, units of the Haganah were given operational orders that stated explicitly that they were to uproot the villagers, expel them and destroy the villages themselves. At the same time, it turns out that there was a series of orders issued by the Arab Higher Committee and by the Palestinian intermediate levels to remove children, women and the elderly from the villages."[185]

The Arab National Committee in Jerusalem, following the March 8, 1948, instructions of the Arab Higher Committee, ordered women, children and the elderly in various parts of Jerusalem to leave their homes and move to areas "far away from the dangers. Any opposition to this order […] is an obstacle to the holy war […] and will hamper the operations of the fighters in these districts."[186]

In a 1959 paper, Walid Khalidi attributed the "Arab evacuation story" to Joseph Schechtman, who wrote two 1949 pamphlets in which "the evacuation order first makes an elaborate appearance."[187]Erskine Childers, an Irish academic, is another critic of this explanation. He examined the British record of the radio broadcasts by the Arab leaders at the time and found no evidence of such orders: "There was not a single order, or appeal, or suggestion about evacuation from Palestine from any Arab radio station, inside or outside Palestine, in 1948. There is repeated monitored record of Arab appeals, even flat orders, to stay put."[188] Morris, too, did not find any blanket call for evacuation:

"Had blanket orders to leave been issued by outside leaders, including the exiled Palestinian leaders - via radio broadcasts or in any other public manner - traces of them would certainly have surfaced in the contemporary documentation produced by the Yishuv's/Israel's military and civilian institutions, the Mandate Government, and British and American diplomatic legations in the area. The Yishuv's intelligence agencies - HIS and its successor organization, the IDF's Intelligence Service, and the Arab Division of the JA-PD, and its successor bodies, the Middle East Affairs, Research and Political departments of the Israel Foreign Ministry - as well as Western intelligence agencies all monitored Arab radio broadcasts and attended to the announcements of Arab leaders. But no Jewish or British or American intelligence or diplomatic report from the critical period ... quotes from or even refers to such orders."[189]

Footnotes

↑ Erskine Childers, ‘The Other Exodus’, The Spectator, May 12, 1961 reprinted in Walter Laqueur (ed.) The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict,(1969) rev.ed.Pelican Books 1970 pp.179-188 p.183

↑ 11.011.111.211.3Reported by Philip Mendes, A historical controversy : the causes of the Palestinian refugee problem; retrieved from the Australian Jewish Democratic Society website on 1 November 2007.

↑Morris, 2004, ‘The Birth Revisited, p. xiv - xviii, some villages were assigned multiple causes and therefore the total amount of occurrences, 440, is higher than the total amount of towns and villages, 392

↑Morris, Benny (1986): The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: the Israel Defence Forces Intelligence Branch Analysia of June 1948. Middle Eastern Studies 22, January 1986, pp. 5-19

↑Lockman, Zachary (1988): Review of The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem by Benny Morris; 1949: The First Israelis by Tom Segev and The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities by Simha Flapan. Middle East Report, No. 152, The Uprising (May, 1988), pp. 57-64